PM BACKS EUROPEAN SUPERGRID PLAN
Plans to explore linking up green energy projects in the North, Baltic and Irish Seas have been backed by Prime Minister David Cameron as part of the UK-Baltic-Nordic Summit held in London.
The Prime Minister announced that Energy Ministers will work together through the North Seas Offshore Grid Initiative and share experience with Ministers in the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) to ensure planning, market, regulatory and technical challenges are properly addressed and the right framework created for industry to invest in future projects.
An electricity supergrid could take green electricity produced in one country to another through thousands of kilometres of sub-sea cables. Wind farms built out at sea could also be connected to a number of countries.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said: “Europe’s future lies in green energy, and Britain wants to work with other countries to make the most of the clean energy potential in and around the North Sea. We’re stepping up our efforts with our European partners to develop a North Sea electricity supergrid that will help secure our energy supplies in a low carbon way.”
The plans could help Europe meet its ambitious green energy targets and help Europe’s energy security, by balancing some of the challenges of using wind energy, including intermittency and the inability to store electricity.
For example, surplus wind energy produced off Britain’s
coast (when electricity demand in the UK is low, but wind speed is high) could be exported to Norway and used to pump water in its hydro-electric power stations. Electricity produced by hydropower could then be sent to Britain at times of high demand when the wind is not blowing.
Latest offshore wind statistics, released by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), confirm that the United Kingdom is the European and world sector leader with 1,341 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity. The UK is followed by Denmark (854MW), the Netherlands (249MW), Belgium (195MW) and Sweden (164MW). Germany, Ireland, Finland and Norway have a further 145MW between them.
|8| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has just announced its top ten pest-related enquiries received by its Advisory Service.
Each year the charity’s entomologists add up all the enquiries they have answered and produce a list of the ten most troublesome pests. In most years slugs and snails have topped this list but in 2010 RHS members wanted to know more about problems associated with the viburnum beetle.
This pest eats the foliage of various viburnums commonly grown in gardens, especially the evergreen shrub Viburnum tinus and the deciduous Viburnum opulus, also known as guelder rose or snowball bush. Adult beetles cause some damage in late summer but it is the grub stage in April-May that can cause severe defoliation.
Principal RHS Entomologist, Andrew Halstead says, ‘’Viburnum beetles are in our top ten list most years but they do seem to have become more troublesome over the last decade. The damage to evergreen viburnums is more apparent because it can be seen all year round.’’
Enquiries into two sap-sucking insects, cushion scale and horse chestnut scale, have increased. Cushion scale infests the underside of leaves on evergreen shrubs, such as camellia, rhododendron, holly and Trachelospermum. Horse chestnut scale is seen on the trunks of horse chestnut, lime, bay trees, sycamore and maples.
RHS members were also concerned about the glasshouse red spider mite, which sucks sap from a wide range of greenhouse and garden plants. Andrew says ’’The relatively hot dry summer last year meant that red spider mite become more of a problem on outdoor plants. However, a benefit of the dry weather was that it also restricted the activities of slugs and snails which prefer wet, cool weather.’’
The number one plant in terms of pest enquiries in 2010 was grass. This was followed by viburnums, roses, apples, fuchsias, lilies, plums, maple, pears and bay. Lawns are usually the number one problem because they have a wide range of pest problems, although most of the damage is caused by chafer grubs.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180